Life is a desert, and you, Lord, are my tent in it. Always ready to shelter me from the rays of the sun and from the sands in the storm. Ready help and constant safety. Without the promise of the tent I would never venture into the hostility of the desert.

You teach me through images, Lord. You have called yourself my rock, my fortress, my tower of strength, and now my tent. If the rock and the tower spoke of power and strength, the tent speaks now of companionship, of closeness, of being together in the intimacy of a reduced space through the thousand vicissitudes of a desert journey.

Your temple is your official abode before all the people, and I come to it with joy and exultation with the crowds of feast days, singing with all your faithful the songs of praise in the majesty of your presence. But now your tent is the intimate rendezvous, the personal encounter, the secret tryst. I come to it with gratitude for your calling, with the thrill of expectation, with the hope of seeing your face and hearing your words. To the temple I can go at any moment, and on the yearly dates of your popular festivals. To your tent I can come only when you call me in the freedom of your friendship and the turning of my ways. Your temple is in the midst of the city. Your tent comes up by surprise at the turn of a dune in the desert when I thought I was lost in the sands of life. There you wait for me to give me strength, direction and love.

Blessed be the desert that brings me closer to you in the shadows of your tent!

“Lift me up and set me upon a rock;
for you have been my shelter,
a tower of refuge from the enemy.
In your tent will I make my home for ever,
and find my shelter under the cover of your wings.
For you, God, will hear my vows